Former Pistons exec turns focus to future after English pro soccer team loss

Rochester sports entrepreneur Andy Appleby and his co-owners of English professional soccer team Derby County already are planning for next season after Saturday’s crushing last-minute defeat that kept the team from a $200 million windfall.

The Rams, owned since 2008 by a U.S. consortium headed by Appleby, lost 1-0 to the Queens Park Rangers when Bobby Zamora scored in the final minute of regulation, off a misplayed ball by Derby, in front of 87,348 at Wembley Stadium in London.

The winner of the playoff final between the second-tier Football League Championship clubs earns promotion to the 20-team Premier League and its lucrative shared global television contracts. Newly promoted clubs get a minimum of $200 million.

Instead, Derby County will return to the Championship league.

Appleby was in London to see Saturday’s match.

“It was a real heartbreaking loss to be sure — especially with the great football that we played throughout the match and then to lose in the last minute of the match when we had no time to mount a comeback,” Appleby said today via email.

“That's sports, football and life all rolled into one. The good news is that I truly believe we can come back and be even stronger for it next season. Fortunately we are all — from the board/owners to our CEO to the manager to the players — completely aligned in wanting to put Saturday behind us and focus exclusively on the future.”

Appleby, a former Detroit Pistons executive, is Derby County F.C. Ltd.’s chairman. He fronted the group that paid $100 million — and assumed $25 million in debt — for the club in January 2008. He is owner of Rochester-based General Sports and Entertainment LLC, a sports marketing and services firm he opened in 1998.

Among his notable co-investors in Derby, as listed on the team website, are Tom Ricketts, who bought the Chicago Cubs for $845 million in 2009, and former Yahoo Inc. President Jeff Mallett, a co-owner of the San Francisco Giants.

If the Rams had won Saturday, the new cash would have been reinvested in the club, Appleby said, not siphoned as profit by ownership. English soccer clubs usually operate at a loss, including Derby.

“The next stage is keeping the players we have under contract together,” Rams manager Steve McClaren told Sky Sports News.

The team will attempt to retain midfielder George Thorne, striker Patrick Bamford, and other core players coveted by Premier League clubs.

Derby last played in the Premier League, for one season, in 2007-08.

This season, the Rams finished 2013-14 with 25 victories, 10 draws and 11 losses, good for 85 points in the standings — most in the club’s history.

That was good for third place and a spot in the four-team promotion playoff. The first two finishers in the Championship league standings are automatically promoted to the Premier League.

The Rams beat Brighton & Hove Albion in two playoff matches earlier this month for a spot in the game at Wembley. Queens Park beat Wigan Athletic to advance.

Derby, founded in 1884, plays a 46-game schedule. The Rams’ only top-level championships were in 1972 and 1975.